Work Text:
Last Goodbye
After Ashley had thrown her clothes in the laundry basket, trying to ignore their reek of smoke and fire and taken a steamy shower, she sat in her living room, staring at the screen of her phone. Stormfront’s text: It’s done. Get in touch with me for details.
Yeah, it would be good to know what name the fake ID was under and where the supe had decided was the optimal hiding place for Ashley from Homelander. Earlier that day, breathing in oxygen from the EMT’s tank and watching Stormfront and Homelander stand on that roof in the distance, she’d had the thought that she should just run, immediately, and leave Stormfront wondering what happened to her, but now she thought it was better to play out the string with her, let her think she was in charge of the escape, at least for now. Let her think herself in control, that Ashley was a whimpering victim grateful for any assistance. That would give her a head start for her actual plans.
Because she didn’t know where Stormfront was in relation to Homelander and didn’t trust his hearing, she returned the text. What are the details?
A return text pinged within two minutes. Call me. He isn’t here, safe to talk. With a shrug, Ashley did it.
Stormfront picked up immediately. “Are you all right? I saw the fire. What were you doing in his trailer?”
“I had some paperwork for a promotional appearance that he needed to approve. Nothing pressing, but I wanted to get it out of the way before I left.” No need to tell her she’d been about to torpedo every plan the other woman had. “The second AD said he thought it was an electrical fire. I’m fine.”
“Good. How’s the baby?”
“I haven’t been to the doctor. I doubt if there’s any damage from me breathing in smoke for a couple of minutes.” Unease twisted in her. She needed to see Dr. Medlin, make sure Lena was all right before she ran, but there might not be time.
“Like I said, everything’s done. Your new ID, including a passport, is under the name of Veronica Troy. I’ve booked reservations for you on a flight out of JFK tomorrow night for Acapulco. You also have a nice little apartment waiting for you when you get there. For a job, you’re on your own, though. There’s a English-speaking expat community down there. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
Ashley raised an eyebrow at the obvious mistakes Stormfront had just made, but she didn’t mention any of them. “Make it Friday night. I’ve got appointments tomorrow and I have to watch the Dawn of the Seven dailies before I leave.”
A thin thread of irritation made itself apparent. “It’ll cost some money to change the dates.”
“Doesn’t matter. I want that two-day head start the weekend will give me. The trail will be colder then.” And Stormfront should have been able to figure that out for herself. Was she just in that much of a hurry to get rid of her? Probably.
She sighed. “Okay, Ashley. I’ll get that updated and have you on a redeye flight for Acapulco Friday night. I’ll come by your apartment after you get back from the Tower to give you the ID and the ticket, and I’ll have someone to drive you to the airport. Does that sound good?”
“Yes. Thank you. I appreciate it.” Once they disconnected the call, she was free to loosen the reins on the Ashley persona and think like Dorian. It was a habit she needed to get back into. Keep Ashley viable for the next couple of days at work, but let her real self out to deal with the real-world shit.
Veronica Troy. She snorted and shook her head. That was a name that would raise flags on the first sweep once Vought’s Analytics division started looking for her. False names needed to be common, unmemorable, unpretty, preferably ethnic. Ordinary. Veronica Troy sounded like a name some Forties actress made up for herself when she came to Hollywood. Neither of the two existing sets of fake ID she had were under a pretty-girl name. If Analytics got to the point where they were checking every single passenger on every flight out of every airport in the Tri-State area it wouldn’t matter, but she felt sure they wouldn’t do that deep a dive.
And Acapulco. Did Stormfront think she didn’t know that the State Department warned American citizens not to travel there due to the high levels of crime? Well, she did think Ashley was a normie so probably expected her to get killed by some cartel soldado before she even left the airport. Plus, she doubted Stormfront would think that Mexico was far enough away to keep Homelander from finding her. Ashley herself planned to put an ocean between them.
Since Stormfront had made her proposal about helping her vanish, Ashley had been pondering whether the other woman felt a kinship with her based on their both being mothers or whether she simply saw Ashley as a threat to her relationship with Homelander, a challenger who could give him something Stormfront never could, a baby. Until now, she had thought it might be on the level, the supe finding a trace of sisterhood with her, earning that feminism she claimed so loudly, but the escape plans blew that theory out of the water. It gave her a sense of calm, that she had figured things out in advance, that she wasn’t the trusting normie she pretended to be. She was still sharp.
Later that afternoon she made a trip to the bank in one of her alternative identities to retrieve some cash from her safe-deposit box. The wig of long blonde hair curling around her face and shoulders was a minor irritant as she presented her ID and they left her alone with the box. It was half-filled with money and a couple of weapons, a 9mm Springfield Hellcat with a ten-round magazine and a Micro Uzi. When she’d first started working for Vought, she’d been averse to keeping guns in her home, which had proved lucky for her once she tumbled to how nosy Homelander was. But she was confident he’d never even suspected the existence of Dorian, and so he would be blindsided by her escape. A needle of pain shot through her as she extracted ten thousand dollars and the micro-compact handgun, storing them in her tote bag. It still hurt, to lose what she had of him, but nothing to be done now. Lena must be protected, from her father and her father’s lover. That was Ashley’s newfound purpose in life.
When she got back to her apartment, she made arrangements for a car rental ending Friday and a moving company to remove all her furniture on Thursday afternoon, to be delivered to a landfill. Probably a little paranoid, but she wanted to cut down on the chances that Vought could obtain her DNA. Nothing to do about her office furniture, but she planned to do a deep cleaning Friday to minimize their access there. Her clothes, with the exceptions of work outfits for tomorrow and Friday and a travel outfit, had already been packed away in boxes to be disposed of at a Goodwill in another borough. Aside from her clothes and furniture, she didn’t have much in the way of personal possessions—a hangover from her nomad lifestyle with her mother—so nothing to worry about there.
Photographs. The thought brought her up short. Lena would expect to see some photographs from her mother’s life before she gave birth, pictures of her grandparents, her father, and while she could Photoshop something with a man she could pass off as Lena’s father, she didn’t have much of her own. Ashley stood up and moved over to her desk, pulling out the manila envelope that contained her family pictures. There were a handful of her as a baby that her mother had insisted on, some pictures of them at the Bakersfield compound before Da relocated them to the Nevada desert, a very few at the desert compound, and then there were only school pictures for a while. Her mother kept those because the false names weren’t connected to them, and after Ashley’s senior year of high school there were only a few pictures of her with Jamie and Ian. She and Homelander had never had any photos taken together, or nothing other than him in the foreground and her hovering somewhere in the background, waiting for his next demand. It was just as well. She stuck the envelope in her go-bag and stashed it in her closet. She would return to the apartment and pick it up before Stormfront arrived with her transportation on Friday.
Before work, Ashley loaded the packing boxes with her clothes into her rental car and drove them to a Goodwill in Queens. There were only two large boxes, as she’d never been fond of clothes and only had what Homelander had insisted she buy as a work wardrobe. She wouldn’t miss them. For her meetings on Thursday, she kept herself under control, holding the vision of the moving company dumping her furniture into a landfill before her eyes while she arranged promotional appearances and planted stories on gossip sites to raise the profiles of the Seven members. Homelander did not appear in the Tower; Stormfront had a rally in the morning where they were both speaking, and then there was a night shoot for Dawn of the Seven. He and Stormfront would return to the Tower between six and seven AM to sleep. Friday night was a night shoot as well, so she felt she didn’t have much to worry about during the day.
After work, she drove back to her apartment with a few items needed for her plans. Outside her door she stopped to don what she thought of as her CSI gear: a paper cap to cover her hair, a surgical mask, latex gloves, paper scrubs to cover her clothing, and paper covers for her shoes. Before she entered her apartment, she wiped the knob free of fingerprints and repeated the process on the interior doorknob.
Four hours later she had both vacuumed and shampooed all the carpets, cleaned every surface with bleach, removed all the drain traps and dumped a gallon of drain cleaner down each one, and wiped every single surface in the apartment for fingerprints. She didn’t actually believe that she could keep her DNA out of Vought’s hands, but if they came here she wanted them to work for the privilege. An empty garbage bag rested near the door, into which she deposited the empty bottles of drain cleaner, the filled vacuum cleaner bags, all the personal items she hadn’t thought worth putting in the go-bag, and the CSI gear she wore. Ashley retained the latex gloves as she took the trash bag, her vacuum cleaner, and the carpet shampooer out to her rental car, pausing only long enough in the hallway to wipe the exterior surface of the door for fingerprints. After she dumped the cleaning items and garbage bag in the dumpster for another building dozens of blocks away, she drove to the Park Hyatt New York, where she’d reserved a room for the night. She wondered whether to put the room on her corporate credit card, as the idea of Vought footing the bill for her last night in New York amused her, but ultimately she charged it to her personal card. That would create a delay in Analytics finding out about the room and it would have been cleaned in the meantime.
The room she’d reserved had a balcony with a view of Central Park, and she stepped outside to get a breath of air. Street noises drifted up to her and she thought she might miss New York more than she thought. But Manhattan and Homelander were inextricably connected to each other and Ashley knew she’d never see either of them again. A whirlpool of pain welled up inside her but she pushed it down. You stayed here too long. When she went inside, wandered the living room and bedroom, found the two fluffy white bathrobes in the bathroom for guests, memories of the Marriott Marquis Washington and the time with Homelander crashed back and she had an impulse to throw them off the balcony but of course didn’t. How many times would memories of him intrude on her new life? And then there was Lena, the most potent reminder of all.
The next morning she took her rental car to the Tower and parked in her assigned spot. She’d given Homelander and Stormfront an hour or two to get to sleep after the night shoot and turned up around ten o’clock. “Cancel all my appointments from now until I’m supposed to view the Dawn of the Seven dailies. I’m working on a special project for Stan Edgar that I can’t discuss.”
“Yes, Ms. Barrett.” And she was free to enter and lock the door. From her purse she produced a fresh pair of latex gloves and began wiping down the office to remove her fingerprints. Soon she would have her secretary call Environmental Services to do an immediate deep cleaning of her office, which would serve to eliminate most or all of her lingering DNA. After lunch she would return her rental car to the agency and catch the subway back to the Tower. The dailies would be shown at five PM and she’d have to discuss them with Adam, at least, maybe Stan Edgar if he showed up. Could she hold herself together long enough for that? She had to. Then it was back to her apartment building to wait for Stormfront and transportation to JFK, and whatever covert plan Stormfront had for disposing of her. Ashley would deal with that when the time came.
Something niggled at her and she went into her purse, finding her wallet and pulling out a business card. It was yellowed, creased at the edges, but the print on it was clear. It was only a man’s name and a telephone number, but it made her doubt. Michael Albrici had been her contact in the US Marshal Service since just before her mother died, when their previous contact had retired. They did have a moderately personal relationship, but they hadn’t spoken since the day Stormfront introduced herself to Homelander and Queen Maeve, the day of the livestream. Ashley had been caught on camera, against her will, and, although she was sure Homelander had thought her shaking anxiety was due to her fear that he’d think she brought Stormfront in the way she’d brought in Blindspot, she was sure that Living Anarchy would see the livestream, know who she was, where she was. Albrici had assured her that, if she saw any warning signs that her father’s cult was nosing around, they would relocate her with all speed. Had the incident at the trailer with the blocked door been Living Anarchy? She decided against it, if only because she didn’t know how they could have anticipated that Homelander would destroy the structure with his laser vision at the exact moment they had trapped her inside. Should she call Albrici and tell him she was running again, but this time without the help of Witness Protection? He’d been kind when her mother died. But again she decided against it, if only to make sure the man had no information that Homelander could torture out of him, in the unlikely case that he uncovered Dorian and started questioning people associated with her.
The alarm on Ashley’s phone went off while she was eating in the executive dining room. Time for the dailies, which meant that Homelander and Stormfront had left for tonight’s location shoot. Adam would take a helicopter from the Tower roof once the dailies were finished. The chicken salad sandwich she was chewing turned tasteless in her mouth, and she took a look around the dining room, its rosewood tables and velvet-cushioned chairs, the spacious windows to let in the Manhattan light that she would never see again. Time to go.
The Tower’s screening room was on the ninetieth floor, with a dozen plush seats and a huge screen. Adam Bourke, along with several other executives from Vought Studios, already occupied their chairs. Stan Edgar was not among them. “Apologies,” Ashley said before taking her own seat. “What are we going to be seeing today?”
“We did a quick retake of A-Train’s interview scene with Jared Novak, when he’s being recruited to join Slipstream, the terrorist organization, and then we have the scene with Homelander and Stormfront in the conference room before going to the final battle. Lights!” The projectionist took the light level down and the scenes appeared onscreen.
Adam leaned over to whisper in her ear, “I really wish Deep had stayed with the Seven. The original ecoterrorist organization was right up his alley. A-Train doesn’t fit in as a disaffected supe nearly as well as Deep would have, and going generic anti-capitalist with the terrorist cause is…weak.”
Ashley made a noncommittal noise. No way would the Deep have been allowed to stay after the Starlight incident, any more than she herself was. She still felt a healthy amount of resentment for the beautiful blonde supe, mostly because Starlight had rubbed her nose in the fact that the rules for Ashley Barrett, the rules that Ashley had tried to teach her, were not at all the same rules that applied to Starlight. If Ashley had been abused by the Deep and outed him publicly as a sexual predator, she would have been fired from Vought and blacklisted in the corporate world, her name smeared beyond repair, but when Starlight did it, it was A-OK with the company and everybody in the world wound up sucking her little pink toes and telling her how wonderful she was for it. And only because Starlight had that sweet pretty privilege. But none of that mattered now; Ashley and Vought were the past, and Ibiza with her daughter was the future.
Ron Perlman was excellent as Jared Novak, the terrorist leader, interior and watchful, saying only enough to draw out A-Train on his grievances with Vought and the Seven while they had their first meeting in a dive bar. In the original version of the scene with the Deep, it had been an aquarium. “I think you’ve forgotten something. What about Homelander?” he asked in his trademark gravelly voice.
A-Train snorted. “Brownnosing corporate bootlicker.” The speedster put real venom and contempt into the line, and Ashley burst out laughing.
Adam looked at her, irritated, and she managed to stop. “It was just…his line reading was—” She made a chef’s kiss gesture. “The comedic timing was perfect.”
Somewhat mollified, he called up to the projectionist, “Hey, Carl, can you run it back to the point where Jared Novak asks about Homelander, so we can hear it again?” Carl complied, and Ashley had to bite her lips to keep from laughing again at the line. It would have been even funnier if Deep had said it. Deep might not have been able to sell the undercover infiltrator role in the same way as A-Train, but the grievance, the hurt at his position in the Seven as lesser, that he could have done to a T. And then their scene ended.
The new scene opened on the interior of the Seven conference room, with Homelander in his usual seat, and Queen Maeve, Black Noir, Starlight, and Stormfront in their respective seats. Ashley took the opportunity to memorize Homelander’s face, the clear blue of his gaze, the gleam of the light on his fair hair, the sheer handsomeness of him as he looked around at the other members of the Seven. “I think that’s all we can do,” he said. The sound of his voice plucked at her and she twisted her hands together in her lap. “We move at first light.” The others said things, agreeing, but she didn’t hear any of that. All her attention was for him. When everyone left the conference room, Stormfront was in the back, and Homelander said, “Wait. I have something else to discuss with you.”
Stormfront closed the door and turned to him, a sardonic smile on her lips. “And what would that be?”
In an instant he was across the room, his hands gripping her upper arms, bringing his face down to hers in a passionate kiss. Ashley’s teeth clenched at the sight and nausea roiled in her gut. Stormfront’s gloved hand came up to caress his cheek as they broke the kiss. “I want you to stay here and monitor us from Analytics.”
“You’re trying to keep me out of the action?” Shock followed by anger moved over her face. “I didn’t join the Seven to stand on the sidelines like a good girl. If the world is in danger, I’m one hundred percent up for it. I’m not some delicate flower.”
“You’ll be more useful to us there.” Homelander’s expression seemed calm, but anyone who knew him in real life could see the anxiety under the surface. It was a nicely subtle bit of business.
“You need me in the fight!” Stormfront’s voice rose on the last word, and her confusion and anger were clear. She wasn’t the actor that Homelander was, but she was a damn sight better than Maeve or Starlight. “We still don’t have any real idea what Novak’s weapon can do, and I’m the only one other than you who can fly. You can’t afford to stick me back here at base. Why are you even saying this?”
“Because I’m not going to lose you!” The words burst from him and suddenly his eyes were wild with emotion as he gripped her face between his hands. “I’ve just found you, the one person in the world I can’t do without, and I will not take any chances with you. You can just forget about that.”
Stormfront’s face softened and she covered his hands with hers. “You won’t lose me, Homelander. I’m just as tough as you are. Nothing will happen to me.”
“Can you promise me that?” A hint of tears appeared in his eyes, just the faintest gleam. “I’ve never had anyone like you in my life. To go on without you…it would be unbearable.”
Ashley’s throat ached and, to her horror, she felt tears welling in her own eyes. At least now she understood why she’d lingered so long after the decision to leave had been made. She couldn’t go without saying goodbye to Homelander, and, since she couldn’t do it in person, this was the next best thing, to drink in his image on the screen and his words of love to another woman, the woman who planned to kill her to stop her from endangering their relationship. If Ashley closed her eyes, she could even pretend he was talking to her, saying the loving words he wouldn’t have dreamed of with her.
“You’ll never live without me. I promise you there is nothing and no one who could ever prevent me from getting back to you, from anywhere in the universe. I love you too much for that.”
The words struck him—in the movie she’d never said that before. “You mean that?”
“With every ounce of my being,” she told him. “I’d never lie about something like this. I’d never lie to you about anything at all.” Stormfront leaned into him until their foreheads were pressed together. He closed his eyes and his face twisted with emotion.
“I love you.” The words were a breath of sound, just a whisper, his voice aching with tenderness, and Ashley couldn’t keep the tears back now. At least she suppressed the sounds, so Adam and the executives wouldn’t know how these scripted words had broken her heart. Her wavering vision took him in, the blond hair dipping over his brow as he leaned forward to kiss Stormfront again, gently, as a promise to the future. “And I will never let you die.” Homelander, thought Ashley. I love you. I always will. I’m so sorry. Goodbye.
The lights came up suddenly, and she knew Adam had seen her crying. “Are you…?” he started to ask.
Ashley groped in her purse for a Kleenex and began wiping at the tear marks. “He’s a wonderful actor,” she murmured. The worst thing was that she knew he hadn’t been acting. He loved Stormfront much more than her, by his own words in that hotel suite in Washington DC. Stormfront was his equal, and Ashley was his pet, and that was all there was to that.
“Yeah,” said Adam. “This movie could actually get him an Oscar nomination, the first one for any supe movie.”
“He’ll love that.” Some of the executives ventured over to speak to the director and she took the opportunity to leave. Ashley knew she shouldn’t have subjected herself to that scene, with Homelander and Stormfront mouthing loving words, but nothing drove home the futility of trying to stay better than that. They were meant for each other. She was nothing but a detour on their journey.
When the Uber dropped Ashley off in front of her building, she took the time to don another pair of latex gloves before entering. No need to leave fingerprints on the front door, the elevator panel, or her own apartment. Analytics might or might not figure out who she was, but she saw no reason not to hinder them.
The moving company had done as requested, and the rooms she’d lived in since her return to Vought from Barcelona were as bare as they had been the day she rented the place. The cupboards were empty, as she’d only had the one plate, the one bowl, the one glass, the one set of utensils. It was a hangover from her childhood, not to have so much that she would hesitate to abandon it. She felt grateful that she’d never adopted a pet.
She paused in the foyer, her hand still on the switch, the door swinging closed behind her. The sense of loss that curled itself in her midsection was nothing she’d been prepared for. When she and her mother had been on the run, she’d felt loss when they’d had to pick up and run at a moment’s notice, but there had also been an excitement to it, moving on to the next new school, new name, new friends. Now that was gone; she had to think of Lena first and last, and the fact that Homelander and her life as Ashley Barrett were also gone could not concern her. Stop being weak, she told herself.
Her go-bag sat in the bottom of the front closet. Ashley picked it up, unzipped it, and got out the item she thought would be most important for her trip to the airport before retrieving the outfit she’d picked for traveling from its lone hanger and went into the bathroom to change. When she emerged, she was wearing a close-fitting black dress that ended just above the knee, black ballerina flats, and a black trenchcoat. The suit she’d worn to the dailies she shoved into her go-bag and zipped it. Once she was finished, she sent a text to Stormfront. Ready.
The answer came back in about five minutes. I’ll be there in twenty.
Time to get going; she wanted to greet Stormfront in the street, not take a chance on her deciding to kill Ashley in her apartment. The sense of loss flared up again as she switched off the lights and locked the door behind her for the last time. You stayed here too long, Dorian, she told herself. Best leave Ibiza before Lena is old enough to remember it, find a nice safe boring place to raise her. Make it somewhere they speak English, though. Lena should have that as a first language. Bilingual would be an asset for her later in life.
Ashley had been standing on the sidewalk for some time, her bag at her feet, before Stormfront touched down. Seconds later a gray Ford Crown Victoria stopped in front of the building. “I’ll have to be quick,” Stormfront told Ashley. “They’re waiting on me for a take and I’m going to have to haul ass back there, but I wanted to give you your papers and ticket myself.” She pulled an envelope out of a hidden pocket in her costume. “The ticket to Acapulco is first class, and the address of your new apartment is on a piece of paper inside your passport. Might want to take it out before you present it.”
Ashley nodded. It irritated her how stupid the other woman thought she was. “Thank you, Stormfront. I don’t know how I would have managed without you.”
She inclined her head. “I’m just glad to help you. Matt will drive you to JFK and then the next stop is Acapulco. If you need anything after that, just call me and I’ll be glad to help out.”
“That’s very generous of you. Good luck with the movie. And everything else.” She barely managed to put a smile on her face.
Stormfront didn’t seem to notice, giving her a quick grin before launching into the air and heading away, presumably back to the set. The man driving the Crown Victoria stepped out of the car. “I can take your bag, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” She handed over her go-bag and he stored it in the trunk before opening the rear driver’s door for her and letting her slide in. Once they were headed for the airport, Ashley took a look at the identification and airline tickets she’d been given. The passport was under the name Veronica Troy still, the picture was hers, but if she compared it to her own forged passport in the pocket of her trenchcoat, she could see tiny imperfections that a normie wouldn’t notice but a Customs agent would. The ticket to Acapulco rested in its envelope. Ashley planned to change clothes in the airport restroom and book a flight to London under the name on the first of the two professional-grade forged passports she possessed. Once she got to London, she’d do another clothing change and book a flight to Ibiza under the second passport’s name, and there she would stay until Lena was born. After that she would play it by ear as to when she should leave and make yet another new life for herself. Another life without Homelander.
Bit by bit her awareness sharpened, extending to the man behind the wheel of the car. He was in his twenties, a bit pudgy, with short dark hair and the scent of cigarettes clinging to him. The blue satin covering his shoulder told her that he was wearing a crew jacket from Dawn of the Seven. “Are you a driver on the movie set?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m a grip. Miss Stormfront said she needed someone to drive a friend of hers to the airport, and I volunteered.”
Miss Stormfront. Did he seem nervous? Ashley wasn’t sure. “Very nice of you.”
Matt made an uncommunicative noise and conversation died out. Was this guy just some rando that she had gotten to drive Ashley to the airport, or was there something more? Could he be one of the followers from her rallies, or something else?
Ashley noticed his hands clenched on the wheel, their knuckles white, and she saw a healing scrape on the side of his right hand. He’d said he was a grip on the movie set and grips move equipment on set, usually to do with the cameras and lighting, but nobody would blink an eye at seeing him move two big wooden beams. If anyone asked, he could just say his supervisor told him to and that would be the end of it. Why would he have blocked the doors to Homelander’s trailer, though, unless he already knew that Stormfront wanted to get rid of her? Travel plans had already been in the works, and if Stormfront had shared that information with Matt here, that meant he was trusted. Maybe trusted enough to carry out a kill order? That might have been what happened at the trailer—he saw Ashley go inside, then used the beams to block the doors before going in search of his boss to get orders about what to do with her. Would he simply have killed her inside the trailer if he’d been able to find Stormfront? But she wouldn’t have approved that; an autopsy would show the existence of the baby and Homelander would figure out everything the moment he learned about that, and the supe’s romance with him would be done. He would never forgive the loss of a child. Since Matt hadn’t been able to find Stormfront because she was wherever she had come back from in time to stand with Homelander on the roof, Ashley had still been in the trailer when he set it on fire with his laser vision, and Stormfront's problem had almost been solved by her cheating lover.
She’d been thinking deeply enough not to notice the route Matt was taking, until a glance out the window showed her that they were near the docks. There was very little traffic. Adrenalin started to pump through her blood. Ashley shifted in her seat, leaning forward. Her skirt slid up enough to reveal the thigh holster, and she reached down to let her fingers rest on the butt of the Springfield Hellcat. Maybe he’s making his move. “I don’t recognize this neighborhood. Are we taking a shortcut?” He looked into the rearview mirror and she made sure to keep her eyes wide and unsuspecting.
“That’s right,” he told her. “We’ll be at the airport in no time.”
“Good.” They were passing through an area of what looked like abandoned buildings, no cars or people in sight, when Ashley leaned forward against the back of the driver’s seat, her mouth near his ear, and said, “Maybe you can handle this better than you did the door-blocking at Homelander’s trailer.”
Matt slammed his foot down on the brakes, which brought her up sharply against the seat back, and scrabbled under his jacket for what she assumed was a gun. She had a dim awareness that the car was still moving, he hadn’t kept his foot on the brakes or put the car into park, then his hand came up with a pistol in it—she thought a Glock—and she yanked her own gun out of its holster.
The Glock’s barrel swung around, trying to aim itself into the backseat, but Ashley managed to grab Matt’s wrist with her left hand and jam the gun against the car’s roof. Keeping her balance with the car slewing all over the road due to his lack of attention was tricky, and once the gun fired, shattering the passenger window. Fear sent a bigger surge of adrenalin through her and, just as Matt freed his wrist and regained control of the Glock, Ashley put the barrel of the Springfield Hellcat to his temple and fired. His body jerked toward the driver’s side door and the car swerved toward the sidewalk, jumping the curb and hurtling forward at an angle until the side of a building stopped its momentum and it came to rest.
Ashley sagged back in her seat, gasping, stunned, staring at the brick wall beyond the windshield. Matt’s foot had come off the accelerator at impact, and now the engine idled. The left headlight and fender had probably crumpled when they hit the wall, but she didn’t feel the need to get out and investigate yet. I’ve killed someone. I killed somebody.
No choice, little bit, said Da’s voice. Trying to kill you, and my granddaughter. That can’t be allowed to happen. You may have the shakes after. It happens sometimes. Hang onto your gun. Control your breathing. Did you see any signs of back-up?
She murmured, “We weren’t followed. Area’s too deserted to hide a follow car.”
What about the supe woman? Believe she might have been lying about going back to the set?
"Nope. If she had been, I’d be dead as soon as she saw her plan going wrong. We’re good there.”
Take stock of the situation, do what’s needed, and get on the way to the airport. Not JFK, naturally.
After she retrieved her Hellcat—it had fallen out of her hand at some point after she shot Matt—she tried to get out of the car to assess the damage. The fact the engine was still running she took as a good sign for its drivability. The rear driver’s door was too close to the building’s wall for Ashley to open, so she slid across the back seat and got out on the other side. Her knees wobbled, but she did her best to ignore that. A quick look up and down the street showed no traffic and no cameras, either on buildings or traffic lights, nearby, so she was probably safe for the moment.
Ashley used her gun to knock out the remaining fragments of glass from the passenger window to be less conspicuous. Matt sat motionless in the driver’s seat. Even though she felt sure she’d killed him, she kept the Hellcat ready as she opened the passenger door and leaned over to press her fingers into his carotid artery. No pulse beat in his neck, and it settled into her bones again: I killed him. I’m a killer now. Just like Da. The sight of the entry wound in his skull made her stomach lurch, and she scrabbled in her coat pocket for her last pair of latex gloves.
She knew she couldn’t worry about it now. The first thing she needed to do was strip the body of any identifying material and dump it in a nearby alley. Then she had to do at least a cursory job of cleaning the inside of his car and drive it to where she had her vehicle stored. The junkyard where she had stored the old Ford Aerostar had twenty-four-hour access, so she didn’t foresee any problems reaching it. After that she intended to drive her car to Newark Liberty Airport and take the next flight to London under the same name as her vehicle was registered under, then switch identities and on to Ibiza.
It was difficult to back the car up and drive it into the alley twenty yards ahead, what with Matt’s body still in the driver’s seat, but she managed it, barely. The touch of his dead flesh turned her stomach, but there was no choice and she sighed with relief when the car was off the street and she could get started with what she had to do. The driver’s side door could still be opened and she unfastened Matt’s seatbelt before dragging him out of the car.
Stripping the crew jacket off his body, trying to ignore the blood on it, she found two cell phones in the pockets, an iPhone with a New York Rangers case and a cheapie Android phone without a case that she thought was probably a new burner to communicate with Stormfront about…matters. The latter proved not to even have a password in place. His wallet was in his back pocket, and his driver’s license showed his name was Matthew David Stronski, with an address in Staten Island. He was twenty-eight. And now she knew the name of the first person she’d killed.
So it would be best to make it look like a carjacking and robbery. Ashley pocketed the man’s wallet and cell phones and dragged his body behind a dumpster, dropping his Glock nearby. She didn’t expect him to go undiscovered for long, but he had no identification on him, which would buy her time before they found out who he was. Fine tremors ran through her limbs. No. That’s Ashley. She can’t deal. Dorian is who you need to be now. Let go of that corporate normie. She will get you killed.
When she got behind the wheel of the car and closed the door, she spotted the bullet that had gone through Matt’s head. It had lodged in the frame of the windshield, and she tried to pry it out for a few moments before giving up. Dark blood decorated her fingertips now, and she wiped them on the satin crew jacket. Blood had also splattered over the driver’s side window glass, and she rolled it down before starting the car and driving away. The GPS on her phone gave her a route to the junkyard where she’d stored her getaway car. She would dump Matt’s car a few blocks away and walk the rest of the way. Then she’d head for Newark Liberty Airport and a plane, and then all this would be behind her.
A persistent sense of unreality gripped her as she wiped the car down for prints with Matt’s jacket before pulling the battery of the phone with the Rangers case and putting it in one pocket. Ashley was about to put the caseless burner phone in the other pocket when it made a sound that she thought meant he’d just gotten a text. When she swiped at the screen, there was a text from a number that she recognized as Stormfront’s cell phone. It said, is it done?
“Used your own phone, huh? You’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were,” she murmured. The text gave reply options of Yes, Yeah, and No. She selected Yes and sent it.
Good. Leave the car somewhere with the keys in it and the doors unlocked. Take the train home. I’ll give you what you’re owed on Monday.
OK, Ashley replied. It seemed generic enough to risk it. Stormfront sent a thumbs-up emoji and then there was nothing else. If she was any judge, Stormfront would kill him this weekend to tie up a loose end, and would be suitably horrified when Ashley’s murder was discovered. Her lips twisted in a humorless smile as she opened the glove compartment to check the registration. It didn’t belong to Matt, but to someone named Anne Burke who lived in Queens. Stolen car? Maybe. Good thing she’d decided not to drive it to the airport.
She put the burner phone in the pocket of her trenchcoat and rolled the crew jacket into a cylinder. Unlocking the trunk, she pulled out her go-bag and settled the strap over her shoulder before closing the trunk and sliding the keys into the ignition. With luck, someone would steal it soon and there wouldn’t be any way of connecting her to Matt’s murder. Besides, she would be in Ibiza by then, under her new name, waiting for Lena’s birth. Turning away, she walked the ten blocks to the junkyard entrance and keyed in her code. Ten minutes later she was in the Ford Aerostar, on the way to the airport.
A brief detour to a gas station to dump Matt’s jacket and phone, as well as to change clothes, don her long blonde wig, and use her own burner to make a reservation on the next flight to London out of Newark Liberty. The soonest one was leaving in four hours, an Oceanic Airlines flight. She booked a seat with the credit card under the false name she would use temporarily, before Ibiza, and tucked the phone away. Ashley’s own phone had its battery pulled and found itself hurled out the window as the minivan crossed a bridge. The Springfield Hellcat joined it a few seconds later, then Matt's burner phone. I’m doing this. I’m getting away. This is real.
The Ford Aerostar was abandoned in the long-term lot. She tried to ignore the growing sense of fear she felt at leaving her life and mostly succeeded. When she was in Ibiza, things would be all right. When she held Lena in her arms, things would be all right. She told herself this as she walked through the airport to the Oceanic terminal and got in line to check in for her flight.
The ticket agent said, “What’s the name?”
“Maxine Oldenhage,” said Ashley.
“Will you be checking any bags?"
She handed over her go-bag and took her printed boarding pass to Security and performed the ritual of removing her shoes and any metal items to drop in the bin and pass through the TSA checkpoint, retrieving her purse and slipping her flats back on before finding her gate and buying some drinks and snacks for the plane. Impossible to believe that she was almost gone, that Homelander hadn’t detected her escape plan and shown up to prevent her. Deep down, had she wanted that, wanted some grand scene in public where he declared his love for her? Maybe—but it could never have happened. No one loves a pet more than an equal.
Settling down on a bench to wait for her flight to begin boarding, Ashley unscrewed the cap on her bottle of Coke Zero and opened the copy of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach that she’d brought to occupy herself. Had Homelander ever read this book? He enjoyed reading, she knew—and she cut the thought off. He had no further place in her life, or her thoughts. What should she tell Lena about her father, other than the thin story she’d already come up with? Where they’d met, a few selected anecdotes about their dates, the first time they’d admitted love, the marriage proposal, the wedding. It was a good start, and she made a note to get a blank notebook to start writing down scenarios. Lena wouldn’t be here for a few months yet, and it would be years before she was old enough to remember, but familiarity with the stories was the key to authenticity.
Her tension didn’t go away until after she had boarded the plane, taken her seat by the window, and listened to the engines as the plane moved down the runway and lifted off into the sky. Somewhere inside her had been the expectation that she would fail, that she was stupid and incompetent as Homelander had always accused her of being, but he was wrong, as wrong as she had been when she thought he could love her someday. With a sigh she closed her eyes and let go of the fear.
Ibiza, she thought.